FAIR TV: Ukraine Hysteria, US Hypocrisy, Keystone Protest

This week: US media go into overdrive over Russia/Ukraine, painting the conflict as proof that Barack Obama isn’t feared enough. Plus pundits laugh at Putin’s delusion–but what about John Kerry’s? And a big anti-Keystone XL rally at the White House hardly makes the news.

Activism Director and and Co-producer of CounterSpinPeter Hart is the activism director at FAIR. He writes for FAIR's magazine Extra! and is also a co-host and producer of FAIR's syndicated radio show CounterSpin. He is the author of The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly (Seven Stories Press, 2003). Hart has been interviewed by a number of media outlets, including NBC Nightly News, Fox News Channel's O'Reilly Factor, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and the Associated Press. He has also appeared on Showtime and in the movie Outfoxed. Follow Peter on Twitter at @peterfhart.

Your commentator on Ukraine is presenting an asinine and rightwing position. Putin has intervened against a massive popular movement in Ukraine which challenges the economic corruption which also plagues Russia. The fact that the US and Europe would also like to benefit from the Ukrainian revolution in no way justifies Putin’s ridiculous intervention (ridiculous because no Russian speakers have been threatened, the rightwing is weaker than in France, and Crimea is very far from the nexus of protest). If you want to say that Putin’s military invasion is as bad as the US invasion of Iraq or that US officials are hypocrites, fine. But deal with the aspirations of the Ukrainian people first and don’t impose a big-power analysis in such a way that you totally disenfranchise the people who live in Ukraine.

My concern is that even with “occupy Wall Street” we wouldn’t have thought it “legitimate” to overthrow Pres.. Obama…, because we really do believe in”Democracy” in America… but why was it allowable to validate the EU’s recommendation that Elections should be set for the transfer of power from “Yankovich” was valid… and then say EVEN THAT WAS NOT ENOUGH… Don’t get me wrong, the jailing of opposition figures IS quite troubling… But shouldn’t we try to talk “Apples to Apples” … At least to the extent to what we portray to the American public? (An election in May or December would have been a “MORE” valid transfer of power…